Radar dishes, gantries, pylons, radio masts. He was approaching the vast power and tracking network to the east of the main control and assembly area and south of the principal launch facility. Scattered lights, a network of roads strung with pale globes, lights shining from huts, from portacabins and even caravans. A strange suburb of Baikonur. It was a minefield designed to assault helicopter rotors, but it was cover, too. It was too precious to be damaged in a wild attack. They would be cautious, almost as if unarmed. They wouldn't be able to use—
As if sensing Gant's intent, the Hind trailing him launched from one of its underwing rocket pods. A flare, then the quick leap of the unguided rockets toward him, enlarging in his mirrors, rushing out the night.
He jerked at column and pitch lever.
Too close, too close.
The amphitheater of tiered seats and rows of screens and monitors that was Baikonur's mission control was only an audience to what was happening down on the room's vast floor, fifty yards or more away from the nearest spectator behind his telemetry screen and console. A strange, vivid frenzy of voices, movement, panic, imminent success, like a dramatic, surprising play. Military personnel mingled on the stage, at the center of which here was a huge, upright map rising from a wheeled dolly. Cables snaked away from the map across the concrete floor. A small jumble of screens and consoles had accreted like mussels on a rock around the map. VDUs and terminals, radio and radar screens were like fragments broken from the orderly rows of equipment of the security section of mission control.
Voices called and bellowed, squeaked or rang metallically. The air was filled with sharp ozone. And tension and excitement and the sense of imminent death. Rodin looked up at the maps surface as a new area of Baikonur was displayed, keyed in from the console that controlled the fiber-optic projection. At once, a single red light jerked across the map and settled. An operator pointed a long rod toward the red light, his face intent upon the information flooding into his earphones. He acknowledged, and wiped the pointer like a wand across the grid-referenced projection. The red light remained where it was, but a snail trail of light drawn by the pointer showed its heading, speed, its changed position on the map. Amid the telemetry and tracking complex. Two other operators traced in the paths of the two closest gunships with similar snail trails, one blue, one green. Gant's track was red, like his light.
Serov stood beside Rodin, his headset awry on his right ear so that he could hear the general. His arm was clutched in a makeshift sling, his face was drawn and dusty gray in color. Rodin had once more assumed control of the hunt, superseding Serov, using the facilities of the main control room rather than the security room that was Serovs headquarters.
"This American is good — dangerously good," Rodin murmured, looking down at Serov.
"We have him, comrade General," Serov asserted without the energy to perform any but a subordinate role. Weak hatred swilled in him like something slowly draining from a leaking water cask, but he simply could not assert any strength. His arm hurt vilely. "He s moving very slowly."
"We can't achieve a kill, not while he's in there,' was Rodin s clipped, scornful reply. "We can't risk any damage before tomorrow. Obviously," he added with an extra sting of contempt. He rubbed his chin while voices and acknowledgments flew about them. "Move two mobile patrols out to the area. Their rifle fire should drive him out — up and out. Then he's naked." Rodin pronounced the word with a curious, even salacious relish.
Hie operators wiped their trails of light across the map. Their earlier markings were visibly decaying. Gant and the two gunships were treading slowly, like men in a minefield, through the tracking and power grid network. The remaining two Hinds, the other members of the gunship helicopter flight, stayed outside the network, awaiting orders and a clear field of fire. The American could not remain there indefinitely. As long as they tracked him closely, carefully, they would have him. More gunships would have helped, but Baikonur had had no need of them. Security at Baikonur had been, until now, an internal matter, and had been effective. Should he call up units from air bases to the west and northeast? MiGs would be unusable here; more gunships? Flying time? Too long. He would destroy the American with what he already had in the air and on the ground.
The colored trails glowed and diminished in brightness on the screen. A slow, balletic dance, like the streamers used in a Cossack wedding dance, whirling, curling, twisting in the air… He was clever, the American.
Serov attended to a voice in his headset, nodding occasionally, his face grayly satisfied within the pain it registered. Then he announced to Rodin:
"Aral'sk KGB office is out of commission. Permanently. No doubt the work of terrorists," he added with a flash of his former vivid competence.
"What did our people discover?"
"A recording of the transmission we monitored from the surveillance camera on the MiL."
"It had not—"
"No. No onward transmission. The recording was destroyed. There is no shred of evidence, outside Baikonur itself."
Rodin nodded, his cheeks flushing slightly at the ease of success. His hand closed into a fist, squeezing air or an image in his mind.
"Good. Then it is contained."
Something on the screen struck his attention, then riveted it, as if the trails of light were whirling hypnotically. He became fascinated, absorbed; and there was an edge of excitement, too. Gants MiL had increased speed, weaving and dodging like a cornered rat; the two gunships lumbered more slowly, picking their way through or over the obstacles in their paths.
The voice of the Hind's pilot was breathless and excited. Rodin Pressed the headset close against his head with both hands, as if to keep the words secret. He smelled the ozone from the electrical equipment festooning the floor, growing around him like a small, rank garden, felt his heart pause, his breath fade.
"He had to lift over the cables — a moment… there's a patch of empty ground beyond… bring him down there?" the voice yelled. "He's lifting now — a hundred feet up, a clear shot—"
"No!" Rodin shouted into his microphone. "Wait. He must be over clear ground."
"… turning now, high-G turn… he's over the open area, now — waiting…? He's banking and turning as tight as he can, spinning like a top — why? Clear shot, General — clear!"
"Make absolutely certain," Rodin said. "Damage must be avoided at all costs. Kill only the American — not our project." Then he waited. He stared at the map, listened to the voice, his hands gripped on the earphones of his headset like claws. His chest ached with tension.
"… climbing, twisting to get away, I'm following him. Yes — no, almost, yes… climbing and turning, descending again now, climbing again, turning, turning, tight high-G turn again, yes, gone….." The pilot was waiting to use one of the missiles slung beneath the wings, radio-guided. At that range, it could not miss, but the pilot was waiting for the optimum moment while Gant squirmed and wriggled like a fish on a hook.
Rodin sighed loudly.
"… tighter turn, in a descent… now he's climbing again, we've got him now — tight turn, follow, then—" There was the noise of a thud. It was quite distinct, as distinct as the alarm in the pilot's voice, which became a cry that was all but a scream of terror. Then his voice disappeared, there was a grinding, rending assault upon the metal of the gunship, then the hissing ether.
"What happened?" Rodin roared.
"… crash," he heard dimly a few moments later. The pilot of the second, observing gunship had begun to report, his voice distant with shock.